A letter from Robert Gross, November 2nd, 2006

Dear Stephanie,

Have I ever told you my strange thought about teaching, which recurs more and more often to me, as a sort of broody fantasy, though perhaps really not a fantasy at all?

I think education in our society is cursed, much like the Nibelungen horde.

I think it is cursed because we sell something that shouldn’t be sold, but should be freely shared.

And all the insanity and greed, the power trips and rivalries and backstabbing come from that basic distortion of human values.

I’m supposed to go up to …. University tomorrow, and visit …. about the journal. The journal isn’t going well, and …. isn’t in good shape either.

Another good teacher on the pyre, I’m afraid, completely consumed by the insanity and dishonesty of it all. One who, I think, will persevere and sacrifice herself to the end, never quite admitting that she, like so many of us, have made the service greater than the god.


From Starbucks College, this is Robert Gross